I Believe in Family

There has been few events in my life that have really shaped who I am as a human being, or that have made me contemplate what kind of values I hold dear to me. However, none of them, have molded me into the person I am today like the day my cousin passed away.

Its been about a year now since my cousin Billy passed away in his sleep one night, and it was probably the hardest thing that my family has had to endure. It was at the funeral that an event occurred that really changed my whole outlook on life; it was when I saw my aunt walk up to the casket of her son with her husband crying, and it was the first time in a long time that I actually just openly cried because I couldn’t stand to see them in so much pain. Days turned into months and my aunt and uncle were still in a deep depression until the whole family on my dad’s side went over to their house to try to help them cope with this grief. It was not pleasant by any stretch of the word, but in the end I think that us being there, together, as a family is what really helped them out the most, because they’re now starting to get back to how things used to be. This is why I believe in family.

When something terrible happens in your life, and you don’t think you’ll be able to get through it, there are usually a lot of people who try to come to your rescue and help you out. There are neighbors, friends, best friends, but deep down you know that your family are the only ones that can be there for you one hundred percent of the time. Your family are the only ones who knows you and what you are going through, and your family are the ones who can just sit there with knowing, just by being by them, that everything is going to turn out alright in the end. Today, a lot of people think that their friends are all they need. They think that they could just blow off their family on a whim and do whatever they want, and I believe that most people could admit to feeling this way at one point, but when I look at my family today, I see them sitting around the dinner table having coffee and laughing about years past.

Its times when there’s no one but your family there to help to when it hits you: when you grow up everyone you know moves away or starts their own life without you and that’s just fine because when all is done and said you turn around and you see the most important people in your life standing there waiting to live the rest of their life with you by their side. Your family.

Shop on Amazon and support This I Believe

We receive up to 10% of every purchase you make on Amazon through this link. So do all your holiday shopping here and help support This I Believe!

Top 100 Essays USB Drive

This USB drive contains 100 of the top This I Believe audio broadcasts of the last ten years, plus some favorites from Edward R. Murrow's radio series of the 1950s. It's perfect for personal or classroom use! Click here to learn more.

This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.